Yellow
by Keeper of Tomes
Summary: 13 of the 100 Challenge. Dark Ace: "He thinks back to what felt like a million years ago, to the dens where songs were sung and comradarie born." A soldier's love affair with Death.


**Title: **Yellow**  
Author: **Tomie**  
Song: **None**  
Summary: **13 of the 100 Challenge. Dark Ace: "He thinks back to what felt like a million years ago, to the dens where songs were sung and comradarie born."**  
Words: **1466**  
Pairing(s): **None

I am shameless. I am, I am, I am. Here I go, churning out one-shots, while everyone knows I should be working on BLuSH. The nerve of me. (slaps oneself)

* * *

_**yellow:**_

_**a tale of**_

_**Death **_

_**in three parts**_

-0-0-0-

_**i.**_

_**(fidelity)**_

"Shh, shh, shh..."

He is pressed down violently by a hand between the shoulder blades, so that he's on his knees. A calloused finger is touching his lips, as they weave slowly through the crates. The hangar is very dark, and in the shadows, it is also unfamiliar. Someone creeps past him, someone light and airy, her perfumed collar emitting a smell that drifts like sweet honey into his nostrils, ethereal. Her hand clamps around his wrist, and she pulls him along. "When is--"

He is cut off by another finger, this one with long and painted nails; he can smell the polish. "Quiet."

They stop moving and peer over the mountain of boxes. Noises are coming from outside, a smattering of voices. Suddenly, the door opens, and a rectangle of light is thrown across the floor. Everyone jumps to their feet and shouts.

"Surprise!"

-0-0-0-

The mission having been carried out, to great success, it was now time to unwind and enjoy the party. "Sit, sit, have a drink...and happy birthday, old man." There was a feeble protest of, _I most certainly am not old!_, which was drowned out by a chorus of cheers. The booze had arrived.

"Ace! You get some, too!"

"Eh...no, thank--"

-0-0-0-

Midnight, said the clocks. Drunken, said the bottles. Delirious, said the walls, off of which bounced obscenities. The yellow liquid had been sucked dry from the glass that contained it. Songs, mumbled through swollen tongues and slurred through slobbery lips, floated slowly through the air.

_Once upon a time, I saw a bonny lass,_

_And on a dare, a dare, I swear,_

_I pinched her bonny a--_

"Boys!"

A reprimand. Silence. Their arms are all draped over each other, clingy as static, sloppy as shit. Only the women are sane, only the women are clear-headed enough to be thoroughly amused. "Sorry, _mother_," someone whispers.

"I heard that!"

The pile of men, the band of smug and drunk brothers, the little group of line-dancers trying vainly to do the cha-cha, hunker down and swivel towards their respective beds, their movements oblique and erratic. Ace felt the weight of his commander, pilot, best friend, and annoyance, leave his shoulders. All that was left now was to find his room...if that was possible.

He collapsed into _a _bed...he wasn't sure if it was _his _bed...closed his eyes, and slept smiling.

It didn't get much better than this.

_**ii.**_

_**(fellowship)**_

How many times has their Master told them that drink spoils the insides? How many times has he emphasized the horrors of tobacco, the perils of gambling, the dangers of loose women? Yet here they are, while the world sleeps outside, sipping beer and whiskey, smoking cigars, and playing poker. _All we need now is a busty waitress_.

"Fold."

The whole room is filled with smoke. You can pick out three things.

The outlines of sleepy, woozy men.

The burning tips of cigarettes.

The yellow light of a single crystal.

It smells of an opium den. He looked at his cards, bringing them close to his eyes to see whether what he held was a king of a queen. At the moment, he was up to his neck in relaxation. Someone mumbles, "I don't got nothin' left." Then curses, flat out, with a vehement, "Fuck this shit." He is kicked from under the table my multiple steel-toed boots, but the Master does nothing. Nothing save throw down three chips and smile smugly from behind a graying mustache.

"In or out, Ace?"

A pause. The young man who has been addressed looks up. There is blood in his eyes and on his hands: he is the notorious murderer of his old squadron, and he is feared. He smiles a malicious little smile, re-adjusts his headpiece, and tosses a small pile of chips into the center.

"In."

-0-0-0-

The money has been flitted away and everyone save the Master is broke. He always wins, not because they let him, but because he's got the Devil on his side. At least, that's what his worshipping subordinates say.

The men in the room lean back with feet propped high on the table. Everyone except their youngest member, their newest addition, is chewing on the smoking butt of a cigar. "Think this goddamn war'll be over soon?"

"I hope not."

Eyebrows are raised at the Master's statement. Then again, they should not be surprised. The old man lives to fight. He breathes the stench of death and calls it a summer breeze. Ace is silent, his arms folded cautiously over a beating heart. _Ka-tunk-tunk, ka-tunk-tunk..._ Like creaky machinery beneath a paper-thin shell. He has always been as fragile as all the others. The difference is how well he hides it.

"Heard Ravess is back in town."

A wolf-whistle. A snarky grin.

"Boys..."

A warning.

-0-0-0-

Everyone else has retired, and it is just him and the Master.

An imaginary conversation in the young man's head:

_What say you about calling the whole damn thing off? _says the old man with the silver hair.

_I say it'd be a bloody shame to end the party when it just got started. _

_My thoughts exactly._

_Exactly._

But out loud, all he says is, "Think I'll turn in, sir."

The old man looks at him through drooping eyelids and a cloud of smoke. He does not smile, at least, not visibly, but he does reach out and squeeze Ace's arm. The momentary contact is mystifying. It is a signal, and it means more than words.

In his head, the old man is saying something. In his head, the old man is warning him.

In his head, the old man whispers,

to

_never love_

_Death._

_**iii.**_

_**(forgotten)**_

She stands with her hands folded above her abdomen, her body tilting slightly towards one side. Cardinally, she swerves west, where the sun is buried by stifling clouds each evening. He is before her with one idiot on either side of him, and all of their breaths melt together into one swollen crest of warmth. There is heat, coming out like yellow steam. Outside, it rains, the incessant pounding of nature against man's monuments to himself.

"You..."

The gold in a woman's eyes.

"...have..."

The sway of a teenager's hips.

"...failed."

The rasp of a dumbass's lungs.

_"Again."_

-0-0-0-

He thinks back to what felt like a million years ago, to the dens where songs were sung and camaraderie born.

He remembers what it was like, to kiss Heroism on her fickle lips, then wake up and find Death in your arms, sick and disturbing. A skeleton pressing its raw and ugly fingers against your bare chest, finding your heart, scratching the skin.

He remembers the yellow and diseased light that shone through his youngest days, when he stood on the brink of disaster and vowed to never bow to another human being.

And he sees how this--

-0-0-0-

--is going to end.

-0-0-0-

"Dark Ace, I do not accept failure."

Nod.

"The next time you meet those Storm Hawks..."

Nod.

"...kill them."

Nod.

"Is that clear?"

He speaks his first word of the evening: "Crystal."

A smug smile wraps itself around her colorless lips. She walks up to him and hands him a piece of paper, which he folds and places into a pocket. Orders, to be read at another time. He is in her private chambers. A Solaris colors the walls orangey-gold.

_I understand._

"Good."

He walks out the door and the shadows slide off of him.

-0-0-0-

A memory is a memory is a memory is this:

_"Have you ever kissed a woman, Ace?"_

_He does not respond to this probe of a question until he is forced to by his companion's fierce glare._

_"Yes."_

_The man laughs, his voice laced with the smell of yellow alcohol. "And? What was her name?"_

_He himself sips a bit of that disgusting and man-making liquid, before saying,_

_"Her name was Death, and she was fuckin' beautiful."_

It is all imagined, of course.

_The Master laughs, and says, "Death is a sweet catch. Not many men can boast they have kissed Death and made it out alive."_

But contrary to the Master's drunken belief, Death was not a sweet catch at all. Yet she had indeed

left him

alive...

-0-0-0-

if only to torture.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed it. Off to update BLuSH, now.


End file.
